Effectiveness of a Sex Toy Party -Based Educational Intervention on Nursing students’ Knowledge and Attitudes Toward Older adults’ Sexuality: A Quasi-Experimental Study

Objectives To evaluate the impact and sustainability of a sex toy party-based educational intervention on nursing students’ knowledge and attitudes toward older adults’ sexuality.Methods A quasi-experimental one-group pretest-posttest study was conducted at the University of Alicante with nursing students. Data were collected at baseline (T0), immediately after the intervention (T1), and at eight-week follow-up (T2). The intervention consisted of a 2.5-hour seminar based on a sex toy party-style experiential approach, incorporating discussion-based activities on stereotypes and age-related changes in sexuality, as well as the presentation of sex toys from a healthcare perspective. Outcomes were assessed using the Aging Sexual Knowledge and Attitudes Scale (ASKAS). Repeated-measures ANOVA and item-level analyses were conducted.Results A total of 160 second-year nursing students (mean age 22.4 ± 7.6 years; 80.6% women) completed all three assessment points. Overall knowledge scores improved significantly across time points (p < .001, η2p = .69). Restrictive attitudes, defined as those supporting family or institutional control over older adults’ sexual expression and intimate relationship, also showed significant and sustained improvement (p < .001, η2p = .39). In contrast, facilitative attitudes, defined as those supporting the acceptance and promotion of older adults’ sexuality, demonstrated only a small immediate improvement (p = .025; dz = 0.21) that was not sustained at follow-up.Conclusions Sex toy party-based educational interventions may effectively enhance knowledge and reduce restrictive attitudes toward older adults’ sexuality. However, changes in facilitative attitudes appear less stable, reflecting the complexity of attitudinal change and suggesting that such intervention should be optimized to effectively influence this attitudinal dimension and achieve more sustained changes over time